*For 1888-89.

a The principal can not classify the students of his school under the above rubrics.

b Can not classify under above rubrics.

TABLE 22.-Statistics of Private Manual Training Schools (see also Public Manual Training Schools, under City Schools Systems, Part III) for

a Includes salaries, tools, machinery, and material used in instruction.

CHAPTER XII.

METHODS EMPLOYED IN THE REFORMATION OF JUVENILE OFFENDERS.1

In all active measures for the reformation of the disreputable portion of society there is noticeable an element which, for want of a better term, may be called faith in human nature. Yet it is not mere faith in human nature that is to be so much noticed as the faith in the power of reason to sway and of habit to mould a human being into the course of conduct that society finds necessary for its preservation and approves. It is quite natural that in a Christian community this belief in the permanent possibility of redemption of the vicious should find its strongest support. It is not improbable that the very origin of the belief was due to Christianity. The stages of the growth of the effort to prevent crime seem to be these: To prevent the orphan or the child abandoned by its parents from coming in contact with vice; then to reform those contaminated by such contact; and finally the reformation of grown criminals.

At first the efforts made in this direction were a matter of charity, though conducted under church, or at least clerical auspices. But finally the State, solicited to lend pecuniary aid, has assumed or is assuming complete or partial charge of the work. In the early efforts of the church, enthusiasm supplied the place of method which was gradually developed as experience showed the way. State control was particularly favorable to this development of the art, so to speak, of reformation, as the expense of giving form to new ideas is more readily borne, generally speaking, by the public purse than by the purses of many charitably disposed persons.

But with the growth of the conception of the interdependence of the physiological and psychological phenomena in man as shown by the removal or mutilation of the sense organs of other animals, an attempt has been made to ascertain the laws which govern criminality. To scientists, therefore, the reformatory is a laboratory of investigations; to the public, on the other hand, it is a place for obtaining certain results. In this chapter we are wholly concerned with the latter view.

From a practical, that is to say, administrative, standpoint the key to the conundrum "What shall be done with these children that they may be saved" seems to be in providing them with a good home, which is universally allowed to be the best possible place of discipline for them. To this end two methods have been employed, one old and requiring the services of an agent to visit the boys at the farmsteads where they have been received, the other, of compara tively recent origin, which consists in furnishing a similitude of a home to a few boys selected from a moral point of view for their fitness to consort with one another.

1.

The first of several general questions asked on the form of inquiry annually sent out by this Bureau was conceived in the following terms:

Briefly and in general terms please favor us with any opinion or other information you may have to impart in answer to the following questions:

1. Assuming, merely for convenience in putting the inquiry, that it is highly desirable to separate those more deeply tainted with vice and crime from the other inmates of the institution: (a) Do you consider that the cottage system answers this purpose, and does the segregation of the more vicious amount to very much the same thing as a classification of all the pupils by age?

(b) What changes at your school in respect to the classification of pupils and the adoption of the "cottage system" during the last decade?

Prepared by Mr. Wellford Addis of the Bureau, specialist in professional education.

To these questions the superintendents of the several institutions have replied as follows:

Superintendent Hatch, of Colorado: (a) No data. (b) No changes.

Superintendent Howe, of Connecticut: (a) The cottage stystem admits of any desirable classification. The natural classification is not by age. The natural family is composed of children of all ages. One or two boys or girls ("deeply tainted with vice and crime") can safely be placed in a family of good boys or girls and thereby be cured by the contact. Nothing is so efficacious in converting the wayward as to make them feel that they are a part of good society. (b) The cottage system has been adopted and carried into effect in Connecticut within the last twelve years.

Superintendent Haines, of Delaware: (a) I consider it very desirable to separate those more deeply tainted with crime from the other inmates and think that the cottage system answers the purpose to a certain degree. (b) No change. Superintendent Shallenberger, of the District of Columbia: Ours is the cottage or family system and consists of three separate divisions. The separation consists in a division of the older from the younger boys. In each family there are two school grades. Out of school session the family is a unit for both work and play. Each family has two dormitories, one for the older and one for the younger boys. Classification other than this, in my judgment, is not important enough to justify the additional expense attending further or special separation. (b) Several years since another, the third, family was organized and placed in our new building. This made it possible to secure a separtion of our older from the younger boys-as indicated under (a) above. This has been a decided improvement, although our families are still too large. With another building we could make the association in each still more satisfactory.

Superintendent J. D. Scouller, of Illinois: (a) We have both the cottage and the congregate system. There should be no mixing of good and bad, vicious and virtuous in an institution when you can draw the line from personal knowledge. The cottage system is perhaps the best for the separation of pupils by age and character. There should be a central cottage or building where all pupils newly committed (or a large per cent of them) should be on probation before being classified according to the commitment, as information given by interested parties generally furnishes a reliable clue to the true character of the boy committed.

(b) We have added one family building or cottage.

Superintendent Mary Lyons, of Illinois: There is no doubt that the cottage system has many advantages over any other, but for various reasons we have not been able to adopt it.

Superintendent Sarah F. Keeley: I think that the cottage system is the better. However, we have not introduced this system, but classify our children by age, keeping the younger ones separate from the older.

66

Superintendent T. J. Charlton, of Indiana: (a) I do consider the cottage system entirely adequate to secure the separation of the more deeply tainted" from those inmates who are less vicious. I do not consider the classification by age as nearly so good as the method in use here of classifying them upon the basis of character. We have four families of large boys. Two of these families are all criminals; the other two, however, are boys of a much higher moral grade. (b) None, except that we are more particular to classify boys as to character. Superintendent C. C. Cory, of Iowa: (a) We have two families; one in general dormitories in one building, one in single dormitories in another building, and much favor the latter. We have no girls that are what would be termed extremely" vicious," and have as yet no necessity for segregation. Only for brief periods is anyone subject to unusual restraint. The more intractable are more benefited by associating with the good than the latter are injured by the contact, contamination being prevented simply by family oversight.

(b) None. Next year we expect to erect another family building with single dormitories, making three families.

Superintendent Buck, of Kansas: (a) If properly classified the cottage is pref

erable.

(b) Formed a family of smali boys.

Mother Matron of St. Scholastica, Newport, Ky.: According to our rule it is absolutely necessary to have these classes separate; but as we have as yet received none of the vicious class there has been no need of segregation.

Superintendent Farrington, of Maine: (a) I think the cottage system partially answers the purpose mentioned above. I do not believe that the segregation of the more vicious amounts to very much the same thing as the classification of all the pupils by age.

(b) No change in the general system of classification. Our first cottage is nearly completed and will soon be ready for occupancy.

Brother Dominic, Carroll S.ation, Md.: (a) We have not tried the cottage system yet and hence can not say much for or against it. But from my experience it is of vital importance in the reformation of those children who are not so deeply tainted to separate them from those more vicious; and in this case the cottage system is preferable, and certainly preferable to classification by age. (b) None. We have always endeavored to keep the younger boys separated as much as is practicable from the older. This we do in the dormitories, in the playgrounds, and to a great extent in the shops and class rooms.

Superintendent Mrs. Brackett, of Massachusetts: (a) We have the cottage system, and believe that all inmates should be classified according to the past record of the inmate and not according to age. I do not think the segrega ion of the more vicious amounts to the same thing as classification by age. Some of our younger pupils are more vicious than some of the older ones.

(b) No data.

Superintendent Risk, of Massachusetts: I think the cottage system is the best as far as my experience goes, and it is upon this system that our school is conducted.

Superintendent Eldridge, of Massachusetts: (a) Think favorably of the cottage system and more of separation on the basis of character than classification by age. Think truant schools should not be maintained in alms houses.

(b) None.

Superintendent Johnson, of Massachusetts: (a) The cottage system answers the purpose better than any other system. The segregation of the more vicious answers a much better classification than can be done by age.

(b) No changes, as we have had but one family of 30 boys.

Superintendent Chapin, of Massachusetts: (a) There should be. I think. more care in the separation of the two classes named; but in general classification by age and by school attainment serves the purpose with the cottage system to help.

(6) In 1885 the school was remodelled on the cottage plan. It started with an administration building, where the superintendent and the most unmanageable boys were to be located, and three cottages to accommodate 30 boys each. Two years ago the large building was remodelled for two groups and at present the school consists of six cottages as nearly independent as it is possible to make them and have them supervised by one superintendent. The main mode of arriving at a classification is to grade them according to proficiency in knowledge. Superintendent Margaret Scott, of Michigan: (a) I think it does.

(b) This institution was organized under the cottage system and no change seems desirable.

Superintendent Gower, of Michigan: We have the cottage system.

Superintendent Brown, of Minnesota: (a) I believe that division of the children into families of 40 to 50 each, according to age, answers all purposes and with proper supervision the danger of contamination by the more vicious will be reduced to the minimum.

(b) Have always been working on the cottage plan, but when we occupy our new buildings the classification will be more perfect, as the families will not be so large.

Superintendent Shaffer, of Missouri: (a) Separation is good, say into three classes: (1) Those entirely good, (2) the large vicious, (3) the small vicious; the latter divisions being, of course, by age.

(b) Separation into two classes, to wit, good and bad, on the congregate sys

tem.

Superintendent Otterson, of New Jersey: Classification by age is not the proper way to classify. Classification should be made according to the moral condition of the inmates; that is to say, the separation of the more vicious from the less, irrespective of age. The cottage or family plan presents an opportunity to accomplish this as no other plan can.

(6) Our institution was founded on the cottage system in 1865. Of late years a more rigid separation has been tried.

Superintendent Mrs. McFadden, of New Jersey: (a) I do think it answers the purpose in a great measure. I think the classification should be made with regard to crimes committed rather than age, as many young in age are old in vice.

(b) None; as our school only numbers about one family.

Superintendent Corrigan (Brooklyn Truant Home), of New York: For our institution, no. The boys confined in this institution are not vicious, only mischievicus, and I consider that the dormitory system is the best.